Enthrall Me With Your Acumen
by StrawberryFields4EverAndAlways
Summary: After his failed invasion of Earth and his trial on Asgard, Loki was sentenced to imprisonment at the hands of S.H.I.E.L.D., who determined he needed a shrink and delved into their database of exceptional people for a good candidate for the job. And that's how a young woman named Katy Szymanski got saddled with a job that feels like "The Silence of the Lambs". Eventual Loki/OC
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Why does everyone do a disclaimer? I mean, it's obvious we don't own. If we owned, we wouldn't be writing fic. We would be writing the real thing. But we aren't. So none of us own and everyone already knows this.**

If there's one thing you should know about me, it's that I really hate parties. They're just a huge jumble of sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and sensations. It's too much for me, like a twenty-one gun salute going off inside my brain.

Unfortunately, my roommate just thought I was being shy when I refused to take part in her frat party rubbish. No, I'm not shy. I'd just rather not have sensory overload like that.

But my roommate dragged me to this party, saying I needed to get out more. It was dark, with painful flashes of multicolored light and loud dubstep music with a throbbing bass. Smells included sweat, at least a dozen different perfumes, alcohol, and pizza. The frat house was packed with people, and each one, for me, was an explosion of their thoughts and feelings. It was excruciating and I wanted out of there.

However, my roommate grabbed my arm and pulled me into the center of the room. Oh no.

"Guys, come see Katy's trick!"

Oh yes.

My roommate shuffled a deck of playing cards and set it down on a table. I reluctantly sat in a chair on one side, and a random partygoer sat on the other.

"Pick a card, any card," I droned.

The girl drunkenly reached for the deck, though it took her a few seconds of groping to find it, and selected a card. I looked her directly in the eyes and saw. "Jack of clubs."

The girl turned the card around to face me. An entirely useless gesture, since I knew I was right. "But that's- that's it," she slurred, "How'd you do that?"

OF COURSE THAT WAS IT. I just frowned and shrugged. "It's just a trick."

Every party guest must have tried their hand at making me telling them what their card was because I was still at it half an hour later.

But the lights, the music, the smells, the flurry of thoughts surrounding me on all sides, they overwhelmed me. My head felt heavy and light all at once and undulating waves of pain crashed against my skull. I wanted nothing more than to go home, but I was stuck at a stupid party, sitting across from some moron holding a card.

So I spewed. I said everything I saw. I couldn't hold it inside any longer. Staring right at the boy, I let loose in a fast monotone voice.

"You knit in your spare time and because you're embarrassed, you hide it from your friends, who happen to be right here. Your brother's nickname for you is 'butthead'. You're worried your girlfriend will break up with you when she finds out you slept with her best friend. Now you're panicking because both of them are right here, too. Your name is Garrett Elias Murray and I've never so much as seen you in my entire life. Also, your card is the seven of diamonds."

Still reeling from the party atmosphere and my rant, I silently grabbed my cane and beat a hasty retreat, leaving all the drunken idiots silently staring after me, still in awe of my awesome, well, what these people would call "mindfuckery".

%%%

The night was a rainy one in Newark, and I did not enjoy walking home in it. At one point, the end of my cane got stuck in an abnormally large crack in the sidewalk and, suddenly caught off balance, my bad leg threatened to give out. However, I made it back to my dorm without further incident, sopping wet but extremely glad to be back in a place where my hyperactive senses wouldn't be assaulted.

And that's when I noticed the strange man in my living room. He was African-American, tall, and wore a trench coat and an eye patch. He looked like what my peers would call a "BAMF." He was just standing there, holding a couple of manila folders and staring at me. The most troubling thing about the man was that I couldn't get a read on him. He must have been trained somehow to defend himself from mental attacks. He had prepared to visit me.

"Who are you?" I demanded, tightening my grip on the handle of my cane. I was by no means afraid to use it as a weapon if necessary.

"I'm Nick Fury, director of the government's Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, or S.H.I.E.L.D." The guy said it as if he'd introduced himself to people as such a thousand times, which comforted me only slightly. I mean, why was he here? Did the people at the party get so freaked out that they called the feds on me?

But I was still feeling pretty arrogant, so I took the sassy route. "Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

"It will if you take this job, Miss Szymanski," said this Nick Fury person.

"A job?" Oh, I needed one of those. Wait a sec… "Hang on. How do you know my name and where I live and everything?" I tapped my foot, impatiently awaiting a good answer.

Fury held up one of his files, and I saw my name written on the tab. Very creepy, yes. "We at S.H.I.E.L.D. know a lot about you."

Well of COURSE the government was keeping tabs on me. "Why?"

"You know why," sighed Fury, obviously frustrated that I was making him go over all this triviality. "It is our job to take an interest in…special cases like you."

I was still a little skeptical. "And how can I be absolutely sure this isn't some sort of prank or scam?" At this point, I had very few doubts, but pissing this guy off was getting more amusing by the second.

Fury rolled his eye and flashed an I.D. badge at me. Though I only got a very brief look at the card, I immediately committed all of its information to memory, and through some split-second analysis, I determined it to be of a genuine sort. I really wanted to take a peek into his mind, just to be absolutely sure of this, but my scans of him again drew blanks. So I sighed and said, "Okay, I believe you. What is it you want me to do, exactly?"

"I'm sure you recall the attack on New York last month." I nodded. How couldn't I? It was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. He continued. "We have the man responsible for all that in our custody. He needs psychological help, and since he is no ordinary patient, no ordinary psychologist would do. This is where you come in."

I took a moment to ponder this and asked, "But why ME? I'm only a second year psych student. With all due respect, I think it would be better for everyone to have somebody with actual experience handle the crazy megalomaniac."

Fury looked at me incredulously. "JUST a second year psych student? We both know that's not true." He flipped open my file to a random page. "'Age fifteen- Above average student. Age sixteen- One of the greatest minds in the world.' The things this file says you can do trump lack of experience."

"I know my brain does crazy stuff, but really, there must be someone out there who'd be better at this than me," I argued. Was I fishing for compliments by this point? Maybe.

Fury looked at me sternly. "If there was someone better, I'd be invading THEIR home in the middle of the night."

I could practically feel my ego inflate a little bit. A gut feeling was begging me to take this job. And since my gut feelings were reliable nine times out of ten, I gave Nick Fury a little smile, my first since being pulled to the party. "I'll do it."


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I only own Katy, Moe the Janitor, Agent Musguire, and my vision of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s New York HQ.**

The following day, after my last class let out, I met Nick Fury at the train station so he could escort me to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters in New York. Admittedly, this seemed like a really dumb idea, letting myself, a not-ugly eighteen-year-old, be taken to an unknown location by a strange man. But despite being very intelligent, I act upon a great many dumb ideas.

Fury and I didn't say much on the twenty-minute train ride from the Rutgers-Newark campus to Manhattan. Mostly, I tapped my feet and shifted my cane from hand to hand. Fury had his eye on me. "You look nervous," he said quietly, although we were the only two people in that compartment of the train.

I shrugged noncommittally. "So what if I am? I don't know where you're taking me. I also happen to have a date with an incredibly dangerous convict. I have every right to be nervous."

Maybe I was even SCARED, but I did my absolute best not to let that show. The gently rocking of the train nearly lulled me to sleep, but the calm computerized voice announcing our impending arrival in Manhattan snapped me back to attention.

Mostly, I love New York. I like how tough it is. Just a month before, it had been under attack, but it was healing, picking up the pieces with quiet strength. The city is just enough to excite my senses, but not overpower them. I'm fine just as long as I keep out of Times Square. The place is intense.

So I was pretty glad to be in New York, although I still didn't know where I was going. Outside the train station, a shiny black car was waiting for us. Fury gestured for me to get in, and I did, laying my cane across my thighs, still willing to use it in self-defense if I had to. The director sat next to me again and we continued on our journey to the mystery location.

Even though this car's windows were tinted and I couldn't see outside, I could still tell where we were, based on my mental road map of New York. I knew we had stopped in Battery Park long before Fury helped me out of the car.

"Is this where the place is?" I asked, though there was absolutely no headquarters or anything of the sort there.

"Nope, we still have a boat to catch," Fury said as he led the way to the pier. As it turns out, the boat was just your standard Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island tour ferry. I was getting confused. Train, car, boat- how many more modes of transportation could we possibly use?

Fury and I waited on board as the ferry briefly stopped at Ellis Island to drop off and pick up some tourists, and a few minutes of more easy sailing in New York Harbor later, we disembarked when the ferry docked at Liberty Island. I'd never actually been on the Statue of Liberty's island, and had never been able to fully appreciate just how HUGE the green giantess was. I was so caught up in my reverie, I failed to notice that Fury was still walking and I had to quickly limp back to him. With tourists all around, we traveled the path that encircled the statue, then, when we were behind her, we veered off into the grass, towards the great lady herself.

Fury paused at a back door in the stone pedestal and let himself in, and I dumbly followed. We stood in this little room, which was lit only by a bare bulb on the ceiling. Ann old man in a janitor's dark blue coveralls, complete with a "Moe" name tag, was mopping. The room was otherwise completely empty. I should have had a bad feeling about this.

Fury cleared his throat and Moe looked up from his floor. The janitor gave us a mostly-toothless smile and asked, "How about this weather we're having?"

Without missing a beat, Fury said, "Can't complain, but I always carry an umbrella."

Moe eyed me suspiciously, and Fury said sharply, "And so does she."

I was instantly confused even more, and it only got worse when Moe tapped one of the huge blocks of stone in the wall three times with the handle of his mop, and it emitted a faint electronic zapping sound. The block, really a door-like panel, slid aside to reveal a state-of-the-art steel elevator.

"Wow," I couldn't help but breathe, as I figured out that the whole "umbrella" bit was S.H.I.E.L.D.'s way of identifying themselves as allies in code. Very cool.

Instead of simply following Fury's lead like I had for the duration of this long, strange trip, I took the initiative and stepped in the elevator first. There was only one button, marked "Lobby," and I reached out and pushed it, beginning our descent.

Fury raised an eyebrow at me. "If I didn't know better, Miss Szymanski, I'd say you were almost a little EXCITED to meet a deranged criminal."

I shook my head quickly, and after a slightly awkward silence, I changed the subject by asking, "So…secret headquarters under the Statue of Liberty, eh?"

Fury chuckled, which seemed odd coming from him. "If you've got a secret headquarters, it helps to remember where you put it."

As various confusing bits of the past hour began to make sense, the elevator came to a smooth stop. I came out of the elevator in a spacious, metallic-walled atrium that was swarming with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents heading from point A to point B. With all of them in suits, I felt very underdressed in my t-shirt and jeans. As Nick Fury made his way through the crowds to the front desk, I started curiously exploring the atrium.

Suddenly, since I wasn't paying much attention, a man ran right into me, dropping papers everywhere. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" I exclaimed, kneeling to pick up some of the mess, which I then observed to consist partly of Stark Industries blueprints.

"Ah, don't sweat it, kid," the man said beside me as he stood there and let me clean up everything. But I knew that voice. It brought up a not-so-distant memory of a man on TV saying, "I am Iron Man."

Sure enough, when I looked up, I saw Tony Stark staring at me coolly. But I read his thoughts and saw something very…interesting.

"I like your shirt," he said, but I knew he wasn't admiring JUST the little Led Zeppelin number I had on.

I shoved the pile of papers back at Stark. "With all due respect, Mr. Stark," I retorted softly, "I never thought my breasts were this interesting."

Before he could reply, however, Nick Fury returned and gave me an I.D. badge. From its freshly laminated surface, my high school senior picture smiled meekly at me. I had to wonder where they got their stuff on me in the first place. Additionally, I hate that picture of me. I had these dreadful bangs that I immediately started growing out and now graze my chin when not shoved behind my ear. Also, though I was getting much better by that point, I was still very thin.

"So here's your official S.H.I.E.L.D. badge. Yes, this means you are officially one of ours now and are on our payroll. I take it five thousand a week will suit you." My jaw dropped and I nodded. "Now," he continued, "to your ob. To get to the cell, start down that hallway there and take a left, right, left, left, right, left, and another left. A guard will be posted right outside. I'd make sure you'd get there alright, but I've got some stuff to do in my office."

That said, Fury left. He didn't even ask if I'd memorized his directions. He knew I had. Then, off to my right, I heard someone wolf whistle and so I looked over. I hadn't realized Stark was still there. WHY was Stark still there? "Wow," he said, sounding impressed, "What can a kid like you be doing that's worth five grand a week?"

I shrugged, like it was no big deal. "I have to visit the guy behind last month's fiasco and give him some therapy."

Stark's eyebrows went up. "They've got YOU babysitting Reindeer Games?" Seeing my bewildered look, he sighed. "He's got a helmet…with horns on it…never mind."

I frowned, nodding. "Okay... I think I'd better, you know, go to work now."

Stark began to walk away. "And I'd better get some people to do my work for me." He gave me a little wave. "See you around, kid."

I got down to business and started down the hallway, diving right into the metal-walled maze that seemed endless. But I had no problems getting around. Then, I made the third left and things got weird again.

You see, I rounded the bend and suddenly found myself with an arrow practically jammed up my nose. "Who are you? What are you doing here?" A man asked me in a dangerous voice. Shaking like a leaf with my eyes closed, I slowly took my new I.D. from my pocket and held it up. I knew sudden movements would give the crazy guy an excuse to put this arrow through my skull.

I opened my eyes and whispered, "I'm supposed to be here. I have a job. Please don't kill me."

A small, feminine hand rested on the scary bow and arrow guy's arm. "Clint. At ease. The I.D.'s legit." The guy lowered his weapon, and I saw the woman surreptitiously return a pistol to one of her holsters. God, these two were intense. The next thing I noticed about the woman was her hair, honestly. That was extremely red hair. I mean, I'd always liked my auburn hair, but next to her, my hair was brown. "Natasha Romanoff," the woman said brusquely, extending her hand to me, and I shook it. "And that's Clint Barton." I read a lot of sexual tension between Romanoff and Barton, who was still scowling at me.

"Why the cane?" Barton asked sharply. I could see him thinking of it as a weapon and searching for concealed blades and whatever else.

"It simply CAN'T be because I'm a cripple, can it?" He still didn't trust me, and being sassy wasn't doing me any favors. Oh well. "Well, it was absolutely lovely meeting you both, but I have to go to work now. See you later."

I continued on my way as if my life hadn't been spontaneously threatened. Before too long, I'd found the door that led into the cell and the guard who stood next to it. "You must be Katy Szymanski," the large man said with a smile.

I nodded. "Yes sir, I am the shrink."

Another handshake. "Tobey Musguire. The guard."

"Is there some sort of protocol for this?" I asked.

Agent Musguire frowned. "Well, even though he got his powers taken away before being brought here, he's still devious and charming. Don't let him in your head. And he'll be behind glass, of course, but you might want to stand back a little." He handed me a necklace-type-thing. "If something goes wrong, push the button and I'll come in."

This was all quite intimidating. I was about to meet with someone I knew to be quite dangerous. I slid the transmitter necklace over my head, took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped inside.

**AAAAAAND, I am a terrible person. Loki comes in the next chapter, I promise. I'm just as excited as I assume you are.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: Remind me why we have these again?**

I crept slowly into the room, the hand on my cane handle shaking like crazy. My patient, whose name was still unknown to me, stood in the middle of his not-so-bad, glass-fronted cell, just watching me come in with his arms down to his sides and a complacent ghost-of-a-smile on his face. He rather reminded me of Hannibal Lecter in that moment. I swear to god, if he said, "Good evening, Clarice," I would have screamed and run away, even with my bad leg.

The tall, lean man had on peculiar armor with a green cape. Again, I felt underdressed. But I took immense pride in myself for looking less crazy than him. His skin was sickly pale and he had magnificent dark circles under his eyes. His eyes, while I'm on the subject of them, were bright green and staring into my soul. It was creepy. He had long black hair that he had slicked back from a surprisingly handsome face. Yes, I'm not going to lie, I was half terrified of him and half physically attracted to him. I am an odd, odd woman.

"This is what they bring me? A little girl?" His voice was silky, though tired-sounding. "I welcome you to the monster's cage."

"Who said you were a monster?" I shot back. Although I'd gotten that impression from Fury, Stark, and Musguire already, and even I was at this point willing to save him a seat on the crazy train. Mostly, by my question, I was being difficult.

He laughed. It was a cruel, mirthless sound. I hoped he had better laughs in his arsenal. "You have no idea."

I raised my eyebrows. "No, I don't have an idea. That's sort of why I asked." I could read that this guy was not one for snark. Perhaps not the direction I wanted to go in, then, but oh well.

A wave of anger quickly washed over his face as he contemplated whether or not to flip out on me, then decided against it. His voice poisonously calm, he said, "Well, I suppose you are the 'therapist my guards have been telling me I was to receive since my arrival. S.H.I.E.L.D. must be mad to think they could turn me to their side just by giving me a pretty face to look at."

I must admit, as someone with a long, ugly history of self-esteem issues, even this sounded really nice to me. But I remembered what Agent Musguire told me and I cleared my head.

"Just a pretty face?" I searched his mind and prepared myself for the mother of all spews. I cleared my throat and stared at him. He was smirking, challenging me to thwart his low expectations of me. I fully intended to do just that.

"Your name is Loki, though whether your last name is Odinson or Laufeyson you aren't even certain. You are the Norse god of mischief and lies, and you live in Asgard, one of the other nine realms. You were born in another realm, Jotunheim, where the Frost Giants live. You are a Frost Giant. You were raised by Odin, who was the one who took you from Jotunheim as a baby, and his wife Frigga. They never told you that you were adopted and ultimately found out the hard way about your being stolen and that Dad was pretty much just keeping you around in case you could be useful someday. Ouch. That's harsh.

"Your best friend growing up was Thor, your older brother. But while he was playing sports and testing his strength, you liked to read books and work on your magic. People always appreciated Thor's talents more than yours. You grew up feeling overshadowed by him and less-liked by everyone.

"Fairly recently, you wreaked some havoc once you found out that you were, as you so eloquently put it, 'the monster parents tell their children about at night.' All you wanted was to feel like the hero for once in your life and have your father be proud of you like he was of Thor, but he told you no. In that moment, you felt completely hopeless, like you'd never be Thor's equal in Odin's eyes. There was nothing left for you. So you let go.

"You fell through a wormhole and found yourself with some seriously bad people. I'm not getting a clear read right now. They've blocked your memories. But you were partially under their control when you came to earth and wreaked more havoc. Their control over you broke when you got Hulk-smashed. A nice head injury will do that for you. Odin sentenced you to imprisonment and rehabilitation here. So here you are and here I am.

"The man I see in front of me is sad, lonely, misunderstood, and defeated. He still resents his family for deceiving him his whole life and for treating him as second-best. He isn't plotting or planning or anything. He's given up, but I still see a dash of goodness left in him."

I leaned on my cane and struggled to catch my breath. Spewing on this scale was exhausting business. I looked at Loki. In his head, he was clearly aware of what I'd just done, and rather alarmed by the sudden invasion of his mind, but he showed no external signs of alarm. In fact, he was smirking at me. "Ooh," he taunted, "Someone is capable of reading a file." Good try for a bluff, but we both knew I'd said more than a file ever would.

I shook my head, grinning smugly. "I didn't even know your name coming in here, unless you count Stark calling you 'Reindeer Games.'" I let that sink in and enjoyed the disgusted face he made at the nickname. For further bite, I mockingly added, "Ooh, someone is capable of reading your mind."

Loki nodded, trying not to look impressed. I could see the gears in his mind turning, thinking that at the height of his power, he would have threatened to kill me at least a hundred different ways by that point. But for the most part, his anger had subsided to the level of background noise and he was typically just depressed, but not so miserable that he didn't want to give me a hard time or see what I was capable of. I'd managed to get him feeling a twinge of curiosity. "And what else might your fantastic skill set contain?" Curious as he was, Loki was not above tossing in a lick of sarcasm.

I was excited. I had rarely been able to try this out. Staring into his mind again, I honed in on the powers that had been stripped from him. Their ghosts still existed within him, and with some concentration, I felt magic soak into my skin and nestle deep in my bones. Temporary of course, but quite fun.

Smiling to myself, I shifted my gaze from Loki to a spot just to my left. I snapped my fingers and a second Katy flickered into existence, identical to me in every way. It almost felt like- no, Katy. Don't even think about it. I willed my double to wave at Loki, who now looked slightly stunned, and made her vanish.

"Mimicry," Loki said quietly. And I'd won him over. "Nicely done, Miss…"

"Szymanski, and thank you. I also have great senses. For example, Agent Musguire is listening to a Beethoven piece- Fur Elise to be exact- on his MP3 player with his headphones on so nobody else will hear. He thinks. Tiny little paint chips on the toes of your boots. Now, Loki, surely you realize kicking the walls won't do any good. Also, shame you didn't finish you lunch. Pasta is my favorite and that marinara sauce smells absolutely divine."

Loki nodded. "Anything more?"

Part of me was hesitant to show him my whole repertoire, even though I knew he had no intention to use the information against me or anyone else since his aspirations of all-worlds domination had since passed. But part of me was an insufferable showoff. "I remember. I learn everything and never forget it. I am a computer with what I believe to be limitless memory." I used the computer analogy even though I knew Loki was rather unfamiliar with the concept of them.

I read him again and saw that, somewhere along the line, I'd gained a small amount of his respect. Loki resented humans, but almost thought of me as an equal, since I almost didn't register as a human in his eyes. Almost. This was a small comfort to me. I often myself feeling like I wasn't human anymore, and hadn't been for a long time.

Loki folded his arms across his chest. "And how did a mere mortal such as yourself become so gifted?" Again, nothing sinister in the works, just intrigue, and for good reason. However, I wasn't quite ready to say anything about that just yet. That would require preparation beforehand.

"Perhaps someday," I said, "but not today."

The fallen god sighed. "How fair is it that you intrude upon my thoughts and memories while I know nothing of you but your surname?"

I couldn't restrain a laugh. "The god of mischief and lies lecturing me about fairness? You have heard the old proverb about the blind leading the blind, right?" I did, however, see his point. "My name is Kathryn Marie Szymanski, though I've gone by Katy my whole life. I am eighteen years old and a psychology student at Rutgers University. My birthday is December 23rd, and my zodiac sign is Capricorn. I'm originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania. I was raised by my parents, whose names are Gerald and Anne. I have a brother named Travis, two years my senior, and a sister named Brianna, three years my junior." I intentionally left one out, for the time being. I couldn't do it. "In my spare time, which, since I started college, isn't much, I like to read all the books I can get my hands on and doodle in my sketchbook, though I'm not very good. My grandmother also got me into knitting, and I'm currently working on a scarf."

"You are concealing something, I can tell," Loki said sharply. "Something dark. Although I am powerless, I know when I am being lied to. Lies are, after all, my area of expertise."

I shook my head. "Not today. I'm sorry. I can't do it."

"For someone so adept at finding skeletons in the closets of others, you do a comparatively poor job of hiding the rattling bones in your own." He smirked again. "You have known darkness, Miss Kathryn, and I shall patiently wait to learn of what exactly it entailed."

I was shaken by this, perhaps visibly, and I murmured, "What makes you so sure I've 'known darkness,' like you said, in the first place?"

A slightly wicked grin at this. "To accept a madman so quickly is to be at least slightly mad yourself."

I decided this would be a good time to end that day's visit. As I started towards the door, I reflected on my time in front of this cell. I didn't think this had gone too badly. My patient was no longer the man I'd been promised. Fury had told me to expect someone insanely dangerous. I got insane, yes, but not so much of the dangerous. Loki, like I said, was past dangerous. There was very little point of all that anymore. As far as my work was concerned, this was a good thing. I had something easier to work with than I anticipated. Yes, Loki was responsible for some seriously bad things, but he was far from unforgiveable in my opinion. Personally, from the first meeting, seeing him from a perspective nobody else could, I believed in him. The challenge would be getting him to believe that, too.

**AN: There you are. I hope my defeated!Loki was alright. In your reviews, I am now taking your guesses as to what Katy's darkness was. I think I've dropped a considerable amount of clues in the past three chapters. Give me your best theories and the closest one to what actually happened gets a hug. Katy will make sense soon, I promise.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer and Author's Note: Do people ever combine these? Oh well, it seems I just did. I don't own, blah blah blah… But I hope I've done this right. It's hard to do a disease justice when you've never had it…**

I had been visiting Loki on a daily basis for a week. It was clear that I was starting to appeal to his better nature, and he was apt to get to my worse one. I gave him something he'd desperately needed- someone to just LISTEN to him and sympathize rather than judge. And he- he brought out a side of me I'd never indulged before, a dark side. Every time Loki smiled at me, I couldn't help but smile back, and when I did, I felt almost like a conspirator in something wicked. With each passing visit, Loki felt less like my patient and more like my friend-that-I-wasn't-supposed-to-have. We were…I suppose you could call us kindred spirits.

However, he was still the god of mischief and I regularly had to shoot down his attempts to weasel information about my past out of me. But one morning, as I looked at my reflection in the mirror and pulled my hair back in a ponytail, I decided I had to let it out. How could I expect him to trust me if I kept big, important things from him?

"Good afternoon, Loki," I said, giving him a little smile, which he softly returned.

"The same to you, Miss Kathryn. And might I say that your hair looks most becoming when pulled back from your face." A bit of a look into his thoughts revealed that this was what he believed, but he was using it to get to me.

Slightly of its own accord, my hand flew to my ponytail, but I shook my head. "There's no need to turn on the charm. I'm going to let you know everything."

Loki raised his eyebrows. "And why might you be doing this now?"

I have a little shrug. "I just want you to feel like you can trust me. Completely trust me."

The fallen god nodded. "If you are so willing, tell me."

Much to his very-visible surprise, I shook my head. "I'm not going to tell you, since I don't know if I can. If YOU are so willing to let me run around in your head, I will."

Loki's skepticism was evident. "Although you have made a habit of intruding inside my brain this past week, this seems to be perhaps a little extreme."

I swear my exasperated eye-roll was completely involuntary. "Trust me on this. Basically, we'll stand there and watch it all happen. It isn't a big deal. In fact, the psychologist in me wants to call this a trust-building, empathy exercise." Of course, the "no big deal" part was a lie. I was terrified of this. It had been hard enough to live it once; to do it again was unimaginable. However, I saw how this experience could be potentially therapeutic to me, too. Maybe by sharing, I could better let go.

Loki nodded. "Alright. How do you intend to do this?"

I switched my cane to my left hand for the time being and pressed the palm of my right to the glass. "Do what I did. Make our palms match up."

Still looking skeptical, Loki did what I said and I closed my eyes. "I really need to concentrate. I've never done this through glass before." I was mostly talking to myself. I took a deep breath and focused all my energy into Loki's hand. A few tense seconds and a brief rushing sensation later, I was in.

Loki and I stood beside each other in my middle school cafeteria. He looked around confusedly. "This is madness," Loki murmured.

I chuckled, and I even sounded nervous to myself. "Your brain, my memories. Of course it's madness. Follow me." I knew where to go. I clearly remembered where I sat in seventh grade. Loki and I stood next to the table.

Two identical thirteen-year-old girls sat there alone, just as I knew they would. "Introductions," I said to Loki, pointing to the girl on the right. "You know me." I pointed to the other. "And…that's Karen, my twin sister."

Loki furrowed his brow. "Twin? You never told me of a twin sister."

"You'll see why it hurt too much."

We watched as my middle school best friend, Liz, came and sat across from Karen and my young self. I shuddered at the thought that what Liz had to say would change everything.

"Guys," Liz said, taking a piece of paper out of her purse, "Look what I found."

Karen took the paper from Liz and her face fell as she scanned its contents and the other me leaned over to look. "What?" Karen said incredulously. "Sign here if you think the Szymanski twins are fat and ugly'?"

Always the quieter twin, thirteen-year-old me whispered, "Everyone's name is on this."

Beside me, Loki was scowling. "Children are as cruel here as they are in Asgard." This statement was directed more towards himself than towards me.

Still, I responded with a simple "Mmhm," and the scene changed.

We were in my childhood bedroom. My young self stood in front of the full-length mirror in only her bra and panties.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Kathryn…" Loki whispered, and I could sense an edge of discomfort in his voice.

"Oh hush," I shot back. "This is important."

The littler me was pinching bits of skin between her thumb and forefinger, mainly from her tummy, but also from other parts of her body.

"What're you doing?" came Karen's voice from the doorway.

Katy looked up, startled. "Nothing."

Karen stood next to her sister and looked at both of their reflections. "You don't believe them, do you?"

My younger self's eye-roll was identical to the one I'd thrown Loki just minutes before. "Maybe I do. Look." Again, the younger Katy pinched at her abdomen. Karen unconsciously lifted her shirt and did the same thing. "We should do something," little me said, and I wanted nothing more than to march over there, slap myself around, and talk these twins out of what they were about to get themselves into. Instead, I turned to Loki, who had a fascinating mixture of confusion and worry plastered across his face, and said, "If it's all the same to you, I'll just take us through the next two years in montage format."

Before he could answer me, I sent us through two years of anguish, moment after moment flashing past in quick succession. Fasting, counting calories, weighing ourselves, gazing at reflections. It was a vicious cycle, punctuated with other scenes, such as our parents insisting to themselves in a fit of denial that the extreme weight loss was just a phase or a part of puberty, Liz saying she didn't want to be our friend anymore because we'd turned weird, the time I'd gained a bit of weight and punished myself by slashing my arm with a pair of scissors. When that last one appeared, I grabbed my arm and felt the long, raised ridge of the scar. One of only a few solid reminders of my two years of wasting away.

After the montage, I settled Loki and I into a blank white space so I could explain a little. Loki was staring at me, at a loss for words.

"Anorexia nervosa. Karen and I both developed it. Basically, a physical and psychological condition characterized by distorted body image and excessive food restriction."

Loki scowled and shoved a hand through his hair. "I do not understand what you are showing me. It is horrible, and I…" He trailed off and his sympathy went unsaid, but I knew.

However, I still didn't want sympathy. What had happened to Karen and I was my own foolish idea. Then things got out of control and something bad happened. But I will never stop blaming myself.

Loki and I stood in my bedroom again, this time in the early morning. The alarm clock on the table between the beds went off. The other Katy immediately sprung awake and silenced the beeping clock, but Karen didn't budge, which was strange. We used to have a competition between us every morning of who would be the one to get up first and bash the "snooze" button. Karen's stillness was disconcerting.

Knowing what was coming, I covered my eyes with my hands, but I could still hear.

"Karen. Karen, wake up. This isn't funny. I'm serious. Wake up. Please." And then the screaming as I realized that my sister was dead. Her heart, unable to withstand the malnutrition any longer, had given out as in her sleep. The coroner would later speculate that she didn't feel a thing, that she had simply slipped away. This moment was horrifying the first time, and it was agonizing the second time. I mean, honestly, it was just about the closest thing one can experience to looking down at their own dead body.

Once the memory of Karen's death passed, Loki and I moved on to my stint at rehab. I was desperate for any sort of help, not wanting to end up like Karen. We watched Katy, the little, skeletal girl, get plumped up again and made better. However, they could not fix the fact that half of who I was happened to be gone forever.

Katy became particularly close to one of her doctors, an older man by the name of Dr. Felix Prudhauser. He was fond of chemistry and experimentation, and he called my fifteen-year-old self up to his office one night and began to speak very excitedly.

"I did it, Katy! I have created something that will enhance traits already present in the mind. My first successful experiment! Would you care to try it?"

Prudhauser had played to my initial weakness and groomed me to become his ever-submissive lab rat. I had been so thankful for his kindness in my time of need that I gladly accepted the injection in my neck.

The effects were immediate. As a twin, Karen and I had shared a somewhat telepathic bond. Now, this gift was extended to full telepathy. Always a bright kid, I became a genius. A history of sensitivity when it came to other people led into my ability to pick up on and learn other people's powers. My senses were always quite good, but with that injection, they became extraordinary.

However, before I could get used to my new mind, everything was a huge blur of sensory overload. Not entirely with it, I stumbled from Prudhauser's office, so caught up in trying to work out the kinks in my operating system that I momentarily forgot where the stairs were.

In young anorexia nervosa patients in particular, there is often reduced bone density. My bones were so weak, that when I fell down the stairs, my tibia sapped like a twig after one wrong hit. And my bones, as stunted and brittle as they were, would not remodel correctly. The leg would never work as well as it used to again.

After forcing myself from Loki's head, we just stared at one another from opposite sides of the glass. Finally, he cleared his throat and said quietly, "I appreciate your honesty, no matter how brutal. I see now why you had such apprehension when it came to what we just saw. I am sorry it happened to you, and I am grateful for the fact that you trusted me with this. There are very few who will tell the god of mischief and lies their secrets."

I knew my trust meant a lot to Loki. When almost everyone doesn't trust you, it feels good to know that someone out there does. In all, I felt that the trust-building, empathy exercise was a great success. There was so much I wanted to say to him, but I couldn't for the life of me get any words out. I could only nod silently, my head spinning and my heart aching.

**Second Author's Note: There you have it. I hope Katy makes sense now. I think she does. Also, I hope I portrayed anorexia nervosa correctly. Like I said at the beginning, I've never had any sort of eating disorder, so I had no personal experiences to go upon. I only had reading I've done in the past along with some research. As always, reviews would be lovely.**


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